1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates to materials and processes for additive manufacturing one or more parts.
2. Background Information
Various additive manufacturing processes are known in the art for forming one or more parts. The term “additive manufacturing” may describe a process where a part or parts are formed by accumulating and/or fusing material together, typically in a layer-on-layer manner Layers of powder material, for example, may be disposed and thereafter solidified sequentially onto one another to form the part(s). The term “solidify” may describe a process whereby material is sintered or otherwise melted thereby causing discrete particles of the sintered or melted material to fuse together.
Additive manufacturing processes may use a metal alloy powder to form metal alloy parts. Such a metal alloy powder, however, may be costly to manufacture due to limited production volumes. Many pure metal powders or some binary or simple alloy powders are commonly produced in high volumes. In addition, when melting the powders during additive manufacturing, alloying elements with lower melting or boiling points may be preferentially lost due to evaporation. It is therefore important to maintain specific alloy concentrations for specific additive processes to produce the same end component alloy. Additive manufacturing processes also require significant energy input to melt the metals and alloys used leading to more costly and higher power lasers, electron beams, so other heat source being used.
There is therefore a need in the art for improved additive manufacturing materials and processes which allow for tailored powder chemistry and lower power heat sources.